Arteriosclerosis is a common vascular disease in which blood vessels become hardened and blocked or partially blocked by plaque that can substantially reduce blood flow. The accumulation of plaque is often a major factor in the occurrence of myocardial infarction, stroke, and high blood pressure.
To treat arteriosclerosis, minimally invasive techniques have been developed. One minimally invasive technique utilizes percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), which can include expanding a balloon under pressure within a coronary artery, and dilating a narrowed area of that artery. While PTCA procedures can significantly dilate narrowed coronary arteries, the treated vessel region may become narrow again in a process known as restenosis. In a substantial percentage of PTCA procedures, the dilated vessel region becomes restenosed.
Another example of a minimally invasive technique is atherectomy. In an atherectomy procedure, a guide catheter can be inserted into the patient's femoral artery and advanced until the distal end of the guide catheter is disposed near the patient's ostium or coronary artery. A guidewire can be inserted into the guide catheter and further advanced into the coronary artery, distally past the occluded region. A therapeutic atherectomy catheter having an atherectomy burr may be advanced over the guidewire, through the guide catheter, and to the narrowed region. The atherectomy burr can be rotated at high speed, causing the plaque to be removed in small particles as the plaque is abraded by the atherectomy burr.
Endarterectomy techniques have been utilized in open chest surgeries. In the endarterectomy technique, an artery may be slit longitudinally along its length by a surgeon, commonly after clamping opposite ends of the exposed vessel. The surgeon may strip the internal plaque away from the vessel walls, and remove the plaque from the vessel through the slit. A significant cleaning procedure typically follows the removal procedure to increase the chance of success. In a high percentage of cases, the vessel thus treated may remain potent for a long time period, rather than rapidly becoming restenosed.
What would be desirable are endarterectomy techniques and devices for performing endarterectomy intravascularly. In particular, what would be advantageous are techniques for performing intravascular endarterectomy using a distant entry site, such as a radial artery entry near the groin.